Did you hear the one about the boss in his underwear?
March 21, 2008 by Jim GiulianoPosted in: Behavior, Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Sexual harrassment, Supervisors
When a supervisor’s eccentric behavior crosses the line, someone has to say something. The question is: What crosses the line? And there is an answer.
Did you hear the joke about the boss who showed up for a meeting in his underwear? Well, actually, it’s not a joke; it’s a lawsuit.
The suit got filed by a female employee at American Apparel Co. who charged her male boss with sexual harassment because he often convened meetings wearing nothing but his skivvies.
For now, let’s forget that image (if that’s possible) and focus on the larger question: What do you do if you have a manager who’s, shall we say, a bit eccentric – maybe even borderline nuts?
Approach it from the legal end
Bosses sometimes pull wild stunts to make a point or to motivate employees. It’s said, for instance, that in Apple’s infancy, CEO Steve Jobs used to storm in on employees while they were tapping away on their computers. To show them the urgency of a situation, he’d immediately unplug the computers, in mid-tap, and carry them off to another room.
OK, so there’s Steve Jobs and there are Steve Jobs wannabes who may go over the line. How do you get them to pull it back a notch when they’ve gone too far?
Telling someone else how to manage is always a touchy subject, so you probably don’t want to put it in those terms. Instead, take a look at the behavior from a legal and employment-law angle.
Even if there’s a ‘maybe’
If the supervisor’s behavior puts the company at risk for a lawsuit, you not only have the latitude to step in and say something but you also have an obligation to step in and say something.
Is the behavior hostile? Discriminatory? Harassing? Unfair or showing favoritism?
Even an answer of “maybe” is justification enough for you to have a sit-down with the eccentric. Just be sure to explain the problem in the context of the law, not in the context of management styles.
By they way, in the “underwear” case, the company is fighting the suit by saying the boss showed up dressed (?) that way when meeting with men and women, so there was no intent to sexually harass.
Tags: , lawsuit, motivate, sexual harassment, steve jobs
March 27th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I really enjoy getting this newsletter but I have a question I’m hoping someone can answer. What do you do when your HR manager is having an affair with the CEO of your company and every employee knows this?
March 27th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
What was the final outcome of the underwear case?
And what about a boss who’s rearranging himself constantly or often, sitting and standing up?
Glenda
March 28th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I would be interested in how others have handled. We have the same issue in our office. Although everyone notices the behavior and is put off by it, noone has formally complained. Despite that, having observed the behavior myself, I asked his boss to speak with him. The VP let the associate know that when he exhibits this behavior it is offensive to many and could be viewed as creating a hostile environment. In their conversation, the boss asked that he take refresher training on sexual harassment. He cautioned the associate that he could face disciplinary action if there were complaints in the future.
March 28th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Our Company has a dating/relationship policy for managers/supervisors. If there is no policy in place, maybe someone can advise a superior of this relationship, especially if it’s having an impact on the work environment or working relationships.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Does you company have a conflict of interest policy? If so, someone may be able to go to a CFO or someone on the board of directors (since they obviously can’t go to the CEO or HR) and raise the concern regarding potential conflicts of interest. Unless there is a specific incident of some kind, they may take a “wait and see” but every company has a different way of dealing with things like this. Very unfortunate.
March 31st, 2008 at 8:19 pm
To Glenda – I had to counsel a manager once on his tendency to ‘rearrange’ himself while talking with others in the workplace. It was an odd habit that he had picked up from his athletic days of baseball and raquetball. Obviously, it’s not an acceptable habit in the workplace so we had to work with him on changing the habit. I suggested that he carry something in each hand when he walked down the hall. It was not the most comfortable discussion to have, but no worse than the body ordor discussion or cleavage discussion that just about every HR generalist has to give at some point in their career. Although I’ve never had a manager conduct meetings in his undies!!!
To Tracy, Yikes! Hopefully your organization has a safe alternate method for voicing concerns. But in that situation…likely the alternate route leads straight to one of the offenders. I’m assuming that there is not an anonymous method for voicing concerns or perhaps someone would have reported this by now and the CEO and HR Director would know that the cat was out of the bag and that they had some serious damage control to conduct. The situation creates a huge liability to the company…if there is a board of directors – that would be an alternate method of voicing a concern. If there are no other options, and you are working in HR…I’d be dusting off my resume. Who would want to stay around for the fallout? It’s likely to spew shrapnel everywhere. And what kind of HR professional would put the company at risk like that? Plus, how can you respect her/him now? I’d cut my losses and run!
July 17th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Romantic relationships in the workplace can be disruptive, expecially if the couple breaks up later and co-workers are unfortunately forced to take sides. Been there and done that and it was uncomfortable for all of us at the office. But as we all know many married couples are a result of being co-workers at some time. So affairs in the office are quite commonplace in my many years of experience.
The most dramatic problem arises when one or both of the romantically involved at work are married. This causes tension among all of the workers. Best way to handle this, is that one of the wronged spouses be informed of the affair. Anomously of course. If I were one of the wronged spouses I would sure want to know about the affair even if it was hurtful to me.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I really don’t think that telling a spouse of the affair would be a wise choice…it could lead to workplace violence. Yeah, that is a decision that I would want to live with if it turned ugly…